


Ticket

by Merfilly



Category: Fast Car - Tracy Chapman (Song)
Genre: F/F, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-18
Updated: 2013-08-18
Packaged: 2017-12-23 23:26:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/932335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rochelle has seen the bad side of life, and always wants better</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ticket

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pocketmouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Fast Car](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/26186) by Tracy Chapman. 



Rochelle had been sprawled on the floor, with two younger sisters, and the babysitter on the couch when the cars came screeching through the neighborhood. She heard something like firecrackers, and all of a sudden the babysitter had rolled off the couch, getting to them all. Rochelle hadn't understood why they all crawled, very low, to the bathroom, and the babysitter had made them get in the old iron tub.

The sirens had been scary, listening to them from the bath, and their babysitter was just staring at the door like some boogeyman was going to pop through. Rochelle had been told she had to listen to the older girl, daughter of a friend of her mama's, and that they'd be safer for having her, but right then, Rochelle was wondering if it was true that all white girls really were crazy.

"What happened?" she demanded, as the sirens cut out, but the flick of the police lights made patterns through the cracked and broken blinds that reached into the hall.

"Drive-by," the babysitter said, tightly. "Your mama and daddy ought to be home soon. I think we're safe, but... just in case the police start shooting, we'll stay in here."

Rochelle, eight years old, wound up hugging her sisters closer, as those words sank in. Couldn't trust the police not to kill them... but maybe having a white girl sitting with them would help. Maybe that's why mama paid the dollar an hour when most kids just sat home by themselves.

`~`~`~`~`

Dry-eyed, Rochelle watched Mama put the last suitcase in the car. Yolanda already lived with Auntie 'Tay, and Maya was in the backseat.

_"I love you, baby. But me and your daddy just can't keep doing this. Found a job, and Maya can stay at Deena's, but... you have school. And someone should look after the fool. Maybe with us gone, he's gonna give up the drink."_

Two months after Mama left, Rochelle just stopped going to school. What was the point? She could use the time to make money, and school never got her nothing.

No one ever came around asking, and Daddy never even noticed. 

`~`~`~`~`

"Yolanda!"

Rochelle sighed as Daddy called her the wrong name again. She wasn't as pretty as either of her younger sisters. She'd gotten to see them at Aunt Tish's funeral, where no one said a single word about the darker circle around her eye. Her mama hadn't come, but Maya and Yolanda had, with the aunts that kept them. They hadn't really wanted to talk to her, but she'd at least seen they were safe and living better than Mama'd managed for them before.

"Bring me a beer!"

It was easier to just do what he wanted... but there weren't any more beers in the fridge.

Maybe he'd take gin, if she just played it off as a special treat, and she could slip out to go get a six pack. Javon never said a word when she came in to buy it and smokes.

`~`~`~`~`

She still didn't get how she'd let Sharon slip into her life like that. They'd both been working down at the A&P, checking, and wound up sharing shifts. Sharon had a car, and if it rained, Rochelle got rides with her.

It seemed nicer when Sharon touched her, making a squeeze play along her ass or stealing a kiss just outside the house, than when the guys did it. Lots of people said it was wrong, like Mamaw, but Sharon didn't hurt her, and Sharon had dreams.

_"Gonna move out to Ridgeland. Gonna be people hiring out there, all that building they're doing. Get out of this place."_

It made Rochelle tingle with fear and desire to think about getting away from Bailey Ave and all of its dying neighborhoods. Maybe... maybe Sharon liked her enough to take her too.

Maybe Rochelle could make her like her enough.

`~`~`~`~`

"We could go, start over, make it all be right," Rochelle said softly, hand resting on Sharon's hip, her head on Sharon's shoulder. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad... Sharon was nice, and she was clean, and she didn't hit...

"Yeah, baby... go out to Ridgeland, grab those jobs just waiting on us." Rochelle moaned into the kiss, and knew this was the ticket. One fast car, one good woman, and jobs on the other side of it all.

`~`~`~`~`

Rochelle liked her job at the new Supercenter. They were staying in low-rent housing, but that would change, because Sharon had a line on a job. She promised they'd have a real house, where Rochelle wouldn't ever worry about needing to hide in a tub. Good thing that; the tubs in the newer houses weren't metal any more.

Sharon promised that hanging out down at Pop-A-Top was just to keep making connections. Once she landed that job, it would all be fine, and they'd have each other.

`~`~`~`~`

_"Come on, 'Chelle, it was just a kiss."_

Their first fight. After two years of 'just can't find the right job, baby' and 'I need to blow off smoke, honey' that was everything she'd heard from her father when she was still little and all she worried about was lunch money, Rochelle had had enough.

Sharon's car had been wrecked during the hurricane, on a contract job down past Hattiesburg. That didn't matter any more. Rochelle knew what a car was. It was a ticket. It had been a ticket for her mama. It had been a ticket away from daddy.

And her own car, just a little Nissan she'd picked up cheap on the lot down by 49, was her new ticket.

She'd wanted to believe in Sharon. 

Maybe she'd been wrong to use the woman, but until tonight, Sharon hadn't hurt her. Maybe that was how Mama and Daddy had been too.

It didn't matter now. She had a car.

`~`~`~`~`

They said Memphis had its problems, but the casino was in Tunica. Rochelle pulled off at the exit, all she owned in the car, to start another new life.


End file.
